


In the Meantime

by zarabithia



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Halloween, M/M, Trick or Treating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-07
Updated: 2014-11-07
Packaged: 2018-02-24 10:14:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2577851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three months after Ultron, Sam and Steve find Bucky.  He's not quite the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Meantime

After the evil robots are defeated, it takes Steve and Sam three months to find Bucky Barnes. It’s August, and sweat is pouring into Sam’s eyes as he carries the five-year-old out of harm’s way. He’d like to be punching Rumlow’s little team - always good fun, because man, fuck that guy - but the five-year-old is confused and sore and missing an arm. 

Sam’s first priority is getting the kid to T’Challa, who is not a doctor, but is more of a doctor than Sam is (his tours did not prepare him for this level of shit.) 

Steve catches up to them after the Hydra base is no more. By then, the frightened five-year-old still hasn’t talked much, but has decided that he trusts Sam and maybe T’Challa. Steve’s presence is an intrusion at first.

"We didn’t meet until I was six. It’s … He’s too …" Steve trails off and looks at Sam, battle wounds that have nothing to do with war all over his face.

T’Challa continues to ignore the interpersonal drama - as he has since he first gave Sam a new pair of replacement wings and decided to tag along on their mission to find another super soldier - and says, “His last doctors did not seem to care about the weight of the metal upon the surrounding tissue.” 

So much judgement, and it’s one of the reasons that Sam likes T’Challa so much. Bucky gets a new arm, T’Challa bids them goodbye, and the three of them get a new, two-bedroom apartment in DC. 

By September, Steve and Sam stop taking turns on the couch. Sam is so pleased by this development, because it’s hard to be in a platonic parenting arrangement with a man he’s wanted to fuck for more than a year. 

By October, Bucky is smiling when he sees them both. He’s still not up to full sentences and the trauma he’s endured says that he might never get there. But he’s happy, more often than he used to be, and that’s progress. 

By Halloween, their five-year old is trying to sit still on Sam’s lap. He’s watched Jody and Jimmy be good while Steve applied their “monster” make-up, and he’s trying to do the same. 

But face-paint tickles, even when your hands are as steady as Steve’s. 

"You sure you don’t want a Captain America helmet?" Sam asks Bucky after the third time the kid’s jaw clenches in a "I want to laugh but can’t" gesture. 

"No. Make-up," Bucky says, and he points to Jody and Jimmy’s faces.

"We are pretty awesome looking," Jody says.

"If you went as the Hulk, you could have green makeup!" Jimmy chimes in. 

"No!" Bucky’s brows furrow and Steve’s white face paint ends up on Bucky’s nose. "CAP!" he insists. 

"Cap is fine," Sam says soothingly. When he sees Jimmy think about arguing, he adds, "Anyone who says otherwise is going in time out." 

"Naughty," Bucky says, but he seems pacified, and lets Steve go back to his work, with only the occasional giggle interrupting him.

Sam holds on to Bucky and enjoys the pained joy that is all over Steve’s face. There’s more joy than pain there these days, and that’s as much progress as Bucky has made.

They’ll get better. All of them. 

But in the meantime, they’re going trick or treating.


End file.
